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The auditorium became even quieter.
I looked up.
Claire was crying now.
Ava put an arm around her.
June held the paper with both hands.
“We found the rest of the letter last month,” she said.
My heart started pounding.
“What do you mean, the rest?”
Nobody answered me.
Instead, Ava unfolded another page.
It was yellowed with age.
The edges were curled.
There were several stains across the paper.
Then she read.
“Your mother didn’t die the way everyone told you.”
I felt the room tilt.
Someone behind me gasped.
For twenty-two years, I had told the girls the same thing.
Their mother had gotten sick.
She had fought as hard as she could.
And then she was gone.
That was all I knew.
Or all I thought I knew.
Ava looked directly at me.
“Uncle Noah,” she said, “we didn’t want to tell you until we knew the truth.”
I couldn’t speak.
June continued.
“Mom had a heart condition that nobody knew about. The doctors believed she had been hiding how serious it was.”
I closed my eyes.
Their mother had smiled at me once from a hospital bed and told me she was tired.
I had assumed she meant tired from being sick.
Now I wondered if she had known she was dying.
The letter continued.
“After she died, I couldn’t look at the girls without seeing her.”
My brother’s words.
Twenty-two years old.